How stupid is this. The Whole world is laughing at us. The oil patch welcomed good news (or at least dodged bad news) as the federal government's proposed B.C. oil tanker ban was defeated by the Senate's transportation committee. The controversial proposal, Bill C-48, would have banned oil tanker traffic along a significant portion of the West Coast -- but really only Canadian oil tanker traffic, as the bill cannot, under international law, ban a vessel from passage in Canadian waters. In effect, tankers carrying Canadian oil would have been banned, but not foreign vessels carrying the exact same product. Tankers have been chugging along the West Coast for decades and there is no other part of Canada's sizable coastline that is under such a ban. Bill C-48 would have almost exclusively targeted Western Canada's energy sector and hindered the export of Canadian petroleum products to international markets.
Now, happily, the Senate committee has rejected the bill by way of a six-against-six tie vote (a tie means that a proposal fails). The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) took heart from the rejection and publicly thanked the committee this morning for deciding to "spare Canada serious, self-inflicted social and economic damage." Meanwhile, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney declared the defeat "a victory for common sense and economic growth." The crisis is not quite averted yet: The decision whether to officially kill the bill still lies with Ottawa.